


little boy blue and the man on the moon

by houselannister



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 09:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houselannister/pseuds/houselannister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WIMBLEDON AU -Jaime as the Best Tennis Player in The World (TM), Robb as the promising star coming to take the title away from him.</p>
<p>written for the yescon-asoiaf community @ livejournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little boy blue and the man on the moon

**Author's Note:**

> I chose not to insert any pairings because this is in no way a shippy piece. It is however, in an universe where Robb and Theon are in an established relationship. Not being the focal point of the work, I am not tagging it as such. But it's a thing.

The clouds are grey in the Wimbledon sky, have been so for a week straight. Robb Stark remembers the sun only peeked during his match against Harry Karstark. It was a welcomed feeling, the warmth scalding his face. As he looks up now, from the balcony of his hotel room, the sun is nowhere to be seen. The clouds are darker than they’ve ever been; he hopes it won’t rain.

Not today. Not tomorrow.

He is tired of waiting.

“Robb?”

In hinder sight, Robb thinks it’s been written long before today. He is not one to think of fate, but he remembers the trophy in his father’s study, towering the room from its spot on the library. He used to look up at that sacred relic, golden against the dark mahogany. He was ten, and too short to reach it, but sometimes his father would lift him up and let him touch it. _It will be yours_ , he used to say. He ruffled his curly hair just the way his mother always hated, but he was there, and Robb realizes now how much of his father he’s taken for granted.

Of course, it’s too late now. Eddard Stark is dead, and only the glory of his youth remains to speak for his legacy. That, and his older son, who followed in his footsteps. It’s a heavy crown to bear, one Robb didn’t ask for. When he plays, he plays because he loves the green grass under his soles, and he loves the rubber handle in his grip, loves the jolt whenever the ball is in his court. He doesn’t do it for glory, certainly not for his father’s glory.

But it’s what he’s been given, and in a way it’s the only thing that keeps his father’s ghost present.

He misses Ned every day.

“Robb, come back to bed you fucking anxious shit.” The voice is familiar, a nice rope to drag him out of the pit of blue thoughts that haunt him today. He slides the window open and walks back into the room, dropping his lighter onto the table, along with the empty packet of cigarettes and his phone.

(Sansa always insists he should get a new one, a fancy one. Robb thinks it’s stupid, that all he needs his phone for is to be sure he will be ready to call every boy who thinks to be a smartass and harass her. She smiles, blushes, tells him he wouldn’t dare.)

(Robb never tells her he can’t get rid of his old phone because his father gave it to him for his sixteenth birthday, and sometimes he holds onto the hope the phone will ring and ‘Dad’ will blink on the screen.)

“Is that any way of speaking to the future winner of the Wimbledon title?” Robb places both hands on his hips, feigns indignation, but it’s hard when Theon’s smile can light up the fucking room, and make him forget that tomorrow he’s to face Jaime Lannister.

“That is if Jaime Lannister doesn’t leave you panting on the grass like a newbie,” Theon jokes,  stretching so that the sheets bare his naked chest.

(Robb knows Theon believes in him. Theon believes in him way more than he believes in himself, and that’s the only thing that makes tomorrow bearable.)

“He won’t.”

Robb Stark is nineteen years old, and tomorrow he will raise that cup.

 

*

 

His hand hurts like a motherfucker. If it were the left one, Jaime might laugh it off, but it’s the right one refusing to work, and he can barely feel the racket in his hand, blinded as he is by the pain. It’s no longer an extension of his arm, it’s a weight his body rejects vehemently. But Jaime Lannister is a man, and he refuses to drop the racket: instead he tightens its grip, hisses through gritted teeth and hits another ball straight into the wall; the yellow little thing bounces, fast and angry, and he leaps to the right, brings his whole weight on his right foot, charges and hits it again, stronger, just as angry. This time the racket flies off his hand, and Jaime shouts at no one, in frustration. His voice echoes across the empty field, and no one hears it.

Jaime’s bag lies discarded near the net, buried under the red towels. (Most people use white towels; he uses red ones because his father used towels just the same color.) He forgets the racket, walks back to the net, crouches down and rummages, tossing his change of clothes aside, careless of the stains of grass that will take ages to get off his jeans. He finds the little bottle, and he pops a painkiller.

The effect is not immediate, so he sits and falls back against the hard ground, the grass tickling his ears. He inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and can feel the pain dissipating slowly, sliding off his body like oil. Eventually, his hands feel normal again, but he stays where he is.

The sky is grey.

“I did not get where I am by sleeping in the field.”

Tywin’s voice thunders, and Jaime barely turns his head to the side, watching his father open the little fence and step onto the court. He is not dressed appropriately, and his shoes would gain him an admonition by any referee. But Tywin is above rules, and they are alone. He does what he wishes, and Jaime won’t tell him not to. He knows better.

And where are you, Father? People have forgotten you.

“I’ve been here for the past four hours,” Jaime replies, sitting up. “I was resting my legs. You don’t want me to crumble to the ground tomorrow, do you?”

“I want you to win, tomorrow.”

Tywin doesn’t know of Jaime’s tendril condition. No one but his physician knows, because Jaime knows it would ruin his career. He is still confident that he can win, pain or no pain. Robb Stark is a child, compared to him. A child who made his way through the tournament with lucky matches and easy opponents. Robb Stark doesn’t know what a real tennis player is because he has never met Jaime on the field.

“I will.”

He should tell his father about his hand.

He will tell him after the cup is safe in their cupboard for the fifth year in a row.

 

*

 

The locker room is silent as a tomb, and Robb leans with his elbows on his knees, training his eyes on his shoelaces. The murmuring crowd can be heard, muffled by the thick walls, but within the room there is not a single sound. Only his heavy breathing, shaky at times, and his fingers rubbing against the cotton of his socks. He tries to focus on Sansa, sitting in the audience, radiant; Arya, Bran, Rickon, cheering the loudest. He thinks of his mother, carrying his father’s memory with as much dignity as a widow could muster. He thinks of Theon, and the champagne bottle he’s sure he already bought. He wonders if it’s ill luck to buy champagne before a match.

Lastly, he thinks of Jaime Lannister. He remembers watching him play against his own father, friendly matches that were never really friendly at all. Ned was older already, and unable to keep up with the strength that came with Jaime Lannister’s youth. But he kept his own, and in the end he never left the court humiliated.

(Robb is terrified. He knows Ned is watching, wherever he is. The fear of disappointing his father grounds him even now that his father is no longer alive. And yet, Robb can’t remember a single time his father pressured him into anything. Where is this fear coming from?)

“At last.”

He looks up, and decency tells him to stand and not look like the child he is, but Jaime Lannister is taller and bigger than he is, and he smiles in a way Robb could not smile, not today. He looks as relaxed as a man can be.  Robb wonders what it’s like, to Jaime Lannister, to feel like God amongst mortals; and he dreads to think what the man must think of him, hiding out in a locker room like a scared little child. That’s what makes him stand, eventually.

He wishes he could say he does not fear him. But he does.

_Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?_

_That is the only time he can be brave_.

Jaime Lannister steps in, cocksure and smug as Robb has always imagined him to be. If this were any other occasion, he might be on cloud nine. If they were anyone else, Jaime Lannister could have been his hero, a role model even. But today he is an obstacle, and there’s no room for admiration. The locker room is already too crowded, and Robb’s thoughts are the loudest.

“I heard you’re good.”

Robb nods.

“I know I am.”

 

*

 

When Robb walks into the court, the cheering from the crowd deafens him.

The sky is white over Wimbledon.

_Winter is coming_.

His father is not in the audience, and Robb think it’s cruel that he should not witness this.

 

*

 

Tywin is not smiling, nor is Cersei in her little black dress. (She looks so out of place; with her somber face, she might be attending a funeral and it would make no difference.)

Tyrion nods solemnly.

Jaime’s hand starts tickling.

_No, not now_.

 

*

 

It is, if anything, a strange match. Jaime Lannister dominates the first half, unrelenting, the giant Robb has seen in tapes. Ball after ball, it’s a cruel victory that nips at Robb’s ego until he almost kneels and prays for his father to help him. The crowd boos loudly when a ball hits Robb straight on the wrist, sending his racket flying to the deep end of the court. Jaime Lannister smirks, the referee sends a scowling glare his way  but the Lannister man barely brushes it off and points at Robb. As if to say, ‘ _it’s not my fault the kid can’t play._ ”

Something happens then, and Jaime Lannister misses his first ball. There is frustration on the man’s face, a growling frown that Robb recognizes as pain. The next ball, he sends straight into the net. Suddenly, he plays like a rookie, and Robb is confused at best.

It’s not Jaime Lannister he’s playing against, not anymore.

 

*

 

Robb Stark scores the match point and Jaime Lannister is petrified in his court, staring at the ground in anger.

Tywin Lannister and Cersei Lannister leave their seats in dignified silence, and no one sees the disappointment in the woman’s eyes. Only Tyrion Lannister remains seated, the crowd all around him rooting for a famous stranger that is not his brother.

 

*

 

When Robb lifts the cup, his mind plays him dirty tricks, and for a moment he could swear he saw Ned Stark, tall and proud behind his mother.

He blinks, and he’s gone, but when the day is over Robb places the cup in his father’s study, on the same library, on the same exact spot he used to be too short to reach.

(He places it there himself. He’s tall enough now.)


End file.
